For the Thunder’s home playoff games, fans waiting to get into the Thunder Shop at the OKC Arena may have noticed another place where they can buy items featuring their favorite players – the auction tables set up outside of Section 119.
Not only is the auction a big hit with our fans, it’s an important source of funding for our major community projects.
The items sold at our home-game auctions range from Daequan Cook’s shoes to James Harden’s jersey, from team-autographed basketballs to Rumble the Bison’s drumsticks. The money that the Thunder takes in from these auctions goes to the Thunder Community Foundation.
Over the course of the season, our fans’ fervor and generosity has added up. From about 30 auctions during regular-season and postseason games, the Community Foundation has raised more than $125,000 to help the Thunder give back to Oklahoma.
Recently, some of our auction proceeds have benefited tornado relief efforts in Joplin and in Alabama (in conjunction with Thunder guard Robert Vaden, a UAB graduate). We’ve funded a court refurbishment for a Police Athletic League facility and made sure kids being raised by their grandparents have gifts at Christmas. We’ve rallied with the rest of the community when OKC police officer Chad Peery needed assistance.
And when I say “we” have done all these things, I don’t just mean our organization – that “we” includes you, too. These wonderful community projects happen because of our fans, because you love our team and want to help us give back.
Everything we do, it’s our fans who make it happen. The link between our fans and our community work is easy to see, but I can’t think of any aspect of what our team and our staff set out to achieve that isn’t shaped by the wonderful support of our fans.
- Karina Henderson
